Philosophy and Paradoxes in Zero Time Dilemma
The Trolley Problem (Fire) Problem You are passing by the railway when you see a runaway trolley running down the tracks towards a group of 10 people. If it hits them, it will kill them, and there is no time to get them out of the way. You could, however, pull a switch which would divert the trolley onto another track, where only 1 person stands who will be killed instead. You have no particular responsibility for any of the other people or for the safety of the railway. Which is it morally better to do: to allow 10 people to die who you could have saved, or to make a deliberate decision to kill 1 person? Zero Time Dilemma This problem occurs in the Fire decision point. Diana is forced to choose between certainly allowing Phi to die in an incinerator with no responsibility for her being there, or pulling the trigger and having a 50:50 chance of killing Sigma. The original problem gives no possibility of an outcome where everyone survives, which makes it significantly more sadistic than the version implemented in ZTD. Newcomb's Paradox (Radical-6) Problem You are playing a game operated by an entity called The Predictor, which can predict people's behavior and has always been successful at predicting your behavior in the past. The game is as follows: you are offered two boxes, labeled A and B. You can choose to take either both boxes, or box B only. Box A contains $10. The Predictor then tells you that while setting up the game, he predicted your choice. If he predicted that you would choose only box B, then he has put $1000 in box B; if he predicted that you would choose both, or make your choice randomly, then he put nothing in box B. He will not tell you which of these actually happened. Taking both boxes seems to be always the better choice, as you will get all the money available no matter what. However, if you decide to do that and The Predictor predicted you would, then there is only $10 available. If you pick box B only, you risk getting nothing, but if he predicted you would you will get $1000 instead. Is it rational to pick the worse choice in the presence of information about the prediction, and is it valid to say that by choosing your behavior you choose the result of the past prediction? Zero TIme Dilemma After taking some syringes filled with Radical-6, team Q are told that they can inject themselves with it or not. Zero tells them that if he has predicted they will inject themselves, then he has previously injected them with FBR, a virus that is fatal on its own but counteracts radical-6 if both are present. If he has predicted they will not inject themselves with Radical-6, he has not injected them with FBR. Injecting themselves is a slightly safer choice as Radical-6 has only a 75% mortality rate, whereas FBR has a 100% rate. This implementation does not fully implement Newcomb's paradox as the "safe choice" is still affected by prediction: if Zero's prediction is right the benefit to the team is the same no matter which they choose, whereas in the original problem if the Predictor is right the player is better not to take the safe option. The Sleeping Beauty Problem Problem A woman has volunteered for an experiment. On Sunday afternoon she is given a full briefing so that she is aware of all the rules below, then she is put into cold sleep or suspended animation. On Sunday evening, while she is asleep, the experimenter flips a fair coin which will determine how the rest of the experiment will be scheduled: * If the coin flip is tails, she will be woken up from suspended animation on Monday and asked "What were the odds that the coin was heads?" She is not told what day it is. After giving her answer, she is given a drug that causes her to lose her memory of being woken and being asked that question, but will still remember she is part of the experiment and what the rules are. The same process will repeat on Tuesday. * If the coin flip is heads, the same occurs except she is only woken on Tuesday. She sleeps through Monday. Regardless of the coin flip, on Wednesday the experiment is over and she is woken up and leaves. Imagine that you are the sleeping woman and you are woken up and asked the odds of the coin. It seems that since the coin is fair the correct answer should be 50:50. However, this does not take account of what you may learn from the fact that you being woken up. If you were allowed to keep your memories and realized you were being woken for the second time, then you would know for certain that the coin was tails. But without that memory you are forced to estimate, and the fact that you are being woken up biases the answer towards tails because you are woken up more often if it is tails than if it is heads. Is it rational for you to state that the odds of the coin being heads are 1:3? The Anthropic Principle "Some things are the way they are because if they were not, we would not be here to ask that." The Anthropic Principle is the principle that some things in the Universe cannot be scientifically explained, especially things which facilitate human life. They cannot be scientifically explained because they occurred only by chance; but had they not turned out that way, humans would not exist, so humans can only ever observe cases where they did turn out that way. The Teletransportation Paradox Problem A machine exists which scans your atomic structure, produces an exact copy of it at another place, and then destroys the original. If you use this machine to teleport, what is your experience? Do you experience getting into the machine and then leaving at the other end, or do you get into the machine and then die by being destroyed, while a clone of you exits at the other end? How could anyone, other than you, tell the difference between this clone and the version of you who is now dead? If the machine is then altered to not destroy the original, but to make a copy, then after you step in the machine, which copy's experiences do you go on to have? And who, or what consciousness, experiences the other copy? Zero Time Dilemma This paradox appears in two places in Zero Time Dilemma. * In the Door Of Truth scenario, Sigma and Diana are able to use the alien transportation machine to send themselves to an alternate history. However, rather than destroying them, the machine copies them. The original Sigma and Diana will still wake up trapped in the shelter. Which consciousness do they experience? * In the Reality ending, Q is told by Zero that his simulated mind can be uploaded into a utopian virtual reality, but another copy of his mind will continue to exist in the real world with Zero too. Uploading will be of no benefit to the existing Q if his consciousness is not the one that will end up in the virtual reality. In both cases, the decision is resolved by the player using the fragment selection system, essentially avoiding the paradox while calling into doubt the nature of the consciousness of the game characters. The Binary Number System The binary number system is a system in which each column can contain only the digits 1 or 0. To count higher than 1, new columns are used in the same way they are normally: so the count goes 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, and so on. Note however than 10 binary is two, not ten; it is just written in a different way. 2 + 2 = 4 in binary is written as 10 + 10 = 100 but it is still two plus two equals four; there is no system in which ten plus ten equals one hundred. The binary number system is important because it allows numbers to be represented by a series of yes/no choices or questions. It is famously used in computers to represent numbers by the presence or absence of electrical charge on a memory cell. Zero Time Dilemma The binary number system is used by Akane in the Infirmary in the Poison setting. The group are offered 7 possible antidotes, only one of which is real, and a small sample of each. Touching the sample of the real antidote with their tongue will produce numbness after 3 minutes. However, the group only have 5 minutes before the poison will kill them if they do not find and take the real antidote, so they only have time for one sample. However, there are 3 people in the group. Akane does not fully explain her solution in the game, but it is based on assigning a binary number to each of the antidotes: 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, 111. She then assigns a member of the team to each column: each person tastes the antidotes for which their column is 1. For example, Akane herself takes the first column and tastes the last four antidotes because their binary numbers begin with 1. In this way, the combination of people who experience tongue numbness will uniquely identify the binary number of the real antidote. If Akane feels tongue numbness then she knows that the first binary digit of the correct antidote is 1. If she does not it is 0. Based on Junpei and Carlos' experiences she can identify the other two digits and thus pick the correct antidote. For example, if Akane and Carlos feel numbness but Junpei does not, that indicates the number 101, or antidote E. Nobody licks antidote A because it is 000, so if nobody feels tongue numbness it must be the correct one. The Monty Hall Problem On a game show, the host offers the contestant the choice of 3 doors. Only 1 door holds a prize. After the contestant's initial choice the host (who knows where the prize is, but does not try to deliberately help or hinder the contestant) opens one of the other doors to show that it is empty. He then offers the contestant the choice of switching their choice to the remaining closed door. Is this a good idea, and what are the odds of them winning the prize if they switch? This problem is famous for the dramatic misunderstandings of probability it causes. Even the original Monty Hall, the host of the actual game show (Let's Make A Deal) where this appeared, was confused by it. The answer is simply this: if you switch, you will win the prize if your original choice was wrong. With three doors, the chance of your original choice being wrong is 2/3. So switching is a good idea and doubles your odds of winning. Everything else in the problem is misdirection. Alternative interpretations and other odds, such as 1/3 (because there are three doors) or 1/2 (because after a door is opened there are 2 left) are incorrect. Zero TIme Dilemma After the Control Room escape, the game announcer plays a Monty Hall game with 10 doors and the prize being the gas mask that is needed to survive the room flooding with CO2. Note that the "host" is not Zero, as the player may not believe them to be a neutral party. The chance of picking the correct door by switching is now 90%. The game plays this fairly, so it is possible by a 10% chance to switch to the wrong door, and the game has a death ending for this circumstance. The Bootstrap Paradox Problem A person found a note on his bookshelf describing the procedures to build a time machine. He followed the procedure and build a time machine to travel back in time so he can place the note on his bookshelf in the past. The question is: where does this note (object or information) originally come from? Zero TIme Dilemma Diana places Phi's Brooch in the transporter with baby Phi to the 1908. Phi was further transported with her brooch to 2008 where she grew up with her adoptive parents. Then Phi attended the DCOM and in one of the timeline was incinerated, leaving her brooch behind. In the same timeline, Diana picked up Phi's brooch and placed with their baby Phi and transported to the past. Where did this brooch original come from? Category:Game mechanics